


In which a desk is not a desk (for a short period of time)

by briar_rxse



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Fluff, IKEA Furniture, M/M, implied sexy times but no actual sexy times, it's just these two noodles mucking up a simple task, there's like a mention of blackwing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-15 05:48:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10551120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/briar_rxse/pseuds/briar_rxse
Summary: In hindsight, it was never really going to work out.They didn’t think it through. They went in blind. They had absolutely no idea what they were doing.And it didn’t take long for Todd to start regretting ever agreeing to it.Todd had been in difficult situations before, but none more difficult that the day he and Dirk tried to build their office furniture together.





	

**Author's Note:**

> And here we have my first dghda fic, as requested by many people in the discord chat.
> 
> Unbeta'd so punctuation is not good, british-ness may prevail in Todd by accident, lmao at formatting and setting? what is setting?
> 
> But yeah enjoy it!

In hindsight, it was never really going to work out.  
They didn’t think it through. They went in blind. They had absolutely no idea what they were doing.  
And it didn’t take long for Todd to start regretting ever agreeing to it.  
Todd had been in difficult situations before, but none more difficult that the day he and Dirk tried to build their office furniture together.

The trip to IKEA itself wasn’t so bad. They had gotten a bit held up in the bedroom department, because Dirk thought he needed to jump on every single bed ‘for a case, Todd!’ They also struggled to find everything they wanted in the warehouse because Dirk had refused to look at a floor plan or, god forbid, ask a member of staff for help. No, while the trip to IKEA had been long and a little laborious, they had succeeded in buying everything that they could possibly need at the time.  
Their haul consisted of two dining chairs (because desk chairs were expensive and would not fit in the car Dirk had acquired for the journey), a single desk (because what’s the point of two desks if they’re working on the same thing?) and three desk lamps: one bright pink, one a sunny yellow, and one black (because apparently light sources were more important that work space).  
Todd could deal with Dirk's bizarre furniture choices with no real problems. He had become used to the eccentric mind of his best friend. The issues started when it came to actually having to assemble the furniture.  
He didn’t think it would be hard. The flat-packed chairs came with an instruction manual, after all. Or they would’ve done if Dirk hadn’t ripped the thing from his hand and threw it out of the window with an offhanded ‘The universe doesn’t want me to use these instructions, I can just use my mind.’  
Todd stopped and sat staring up at Dirk, who was grinning wildly back down at him. ‘No, Dirk. I… uh. I don’t think that’s how it works.’  
‘It’ll be fine, Todd! I mean, building a chair is hardly a difficult task, now is it?’  
Todd sighed. He didn’t really fancy getting into an argument with a man who always seemed to have puppy dog eyes on his side. He knew it would all be over if Dirk shot him that look, and the furniture would probably end up left lying on the floor for a few days while the two of them got certain other activities out of the way. If they were going to do this, it was going to have to be done the way Dirk wanted it done.  
‘Okay, where do you reckon we start?’

As it turned out, building a chair was an incredibly hard task. Their first attempt had seen Dirk attempting to connect the legs to the back of the chair instead of the bottom. Todd had to forcibly take the screwdriver off him before he put holes in the chair. Or himself.  
The second attempt was made by Todd, but he couldn’t figure out which way each of the legs was supposed to be facing. He gave up much quicker than Dirk had and ended his effort by throwing one of the legs across the room. He could hear dirk tutting as he went to fetch the leg in order for them to try again.  
Dirk took the reins again for a third attempt, and ended up putting two legs in the right place, and two in the very much wrong place. While the chair had been presented as functional by Dirk, Todd absolutely refused to let him try it out because it was ‘probably a risk to your safety.’  
They ended up sitting on the floor surrounded by tools and various pieces of wood. Todd was ready to go outside and look for the instruction manual, but he knew that it was probably long gone by now. Trust Dirk to screw up a task that could’ve been so simple.  
Dirk, on the other hand, appeared quite content to study a hammer that had somehow found its way into his hand. If Todd had any sympathy for the man at that point in time he probably would’ve taken the hammer off him, but he was too annoyed about the mess of a room that they were currently situated in that he found himself caring more about the fact that he hadn’t had a cup of coffee since he woke up, and he was running out of energy to deal with anything.  
‘Tea?’ he asked as he headed for the kitchen, only receiving a muffled ‘ummhmm’ in response. He decided to take it as a yes, and began to fill the kettle that Dirk insisted the buy a few months before with water.

If letting Dirk help build the furniture was his first mistake that day, turning his back to make drinks was the second. He barely registered the sound of cardboard being cut behind him, instead choosing to check his phone. He had no messages from Amanda – she was still mad at him, understandably, and he had decided to give her the time that she needed – so he played a few rounds of colour switch as he waited for the kettle to boil.  
He also failed to fully register the ‘Ouch!’ that Dirk ejaculated as mugs were being pulled off the shelf.  
‘Are you okay in there?’ he called back as he threw an earl grey teabag into one mug and spooned some instant coffee into the other.  
‘Yeah, no, everything’s fine, it’s all good, nothing wrong at all in here,’ came the response, rushed, certainly, but with no real evidence of pain. Todd stayed with his back towards whatever commotion it was that he had half-consciously chosen to ignore, electing to pour water into the mugs instead of confront his fears about what was truly happening behind him.  
Dirk’s muttering seems to get louder as Todd searched for the sugar. He tried not to let it get to him when Dirk let out a triumphant ‘AHA!’ at the moment that he opened the cabinet that it had been incorrectly stored in. He tried to convince himself that it was just a regular coincidence, nothing to do with Dirk’s holistic methods. He tried to focus solely on put in correct number of teaspoons of sugar into Dirk’s tea, tried to think only about why it was that Dirk had sugar in a tea that you weren't supposed to put sugar in, tried to find anything to do besides turn around and look through the door behind him.  
So no one could say that it was for a lack of trying that he walked out of kitchen and nearly dropped two steaming drinks down the front of his shirt when he saw the horror that faced him.  
The horror – Todd was struggling to find another word to describe it – was, or should have been, a desk. But a desk was not what the object standing – could it be called standing? – in front of him.  
‘Dirk?’ He was apprehensive, still not ready for any fights to erupt over furniture. ‘Why are the legs all on different sides?’  
‘Don’t be stupid Todd, this is how it’s supposed… oh. Oh gosh they are, oh no.’ Todd couldn’t help but giggle at Dirk’s tone and the slightly terrified look on his face.  
‘Here,’ he said with a smile, holding out the mug of tea he was yet to put down. ‘Sit down and drink this, I’ll see what I can do about… this.’ He placed his coffee down on the window sill, and looked back at Dirk. ‘Please tell me you didn’t throw the instructions out of the window again.’  
Dirk flushed, and made a futile attempt to hide it by looking towards the floor. As he did so, a hand shot out and pointed towards the corner of the room, when a large crumple of paper lay.  
‘Right. Better see if we can fix this.’

Todd worked slowly, taking apart the ‘desk’ that Dirk had made and putting it back together again in the way that the instructions deemed correct. Every so often he would stop and lift up the now flattened instructions in order to regain his bearings. There was no way he was going to mess anything up this time around. It was during one of these periods of time that Dirk perked up from where he was lounging on the floor.  
‘Why are the instructions upside down and in Portuguese?’ Todd lower the paper slightly in order to meet Dirk’s eyes.  
‘Because I’m looking at the English side that’ the right way up, Dirk’ he said with a roll of his eyes, almost immediately followed by ‘Wait, you speak Portuguese?’  
‘Not much, no. Just a few words here and there. They tried to make me read things in languages I didn’t understand, just to see if I could. I picked some things up over time.’ Dirk’s voice faded out towards the end, and Todd didn’t push him to talk any more. Blackwing was a highly sensitive subject and Todd knew that he was lucky if Dirk ever offered him any information about his time there. He went back to his instructions, working once again in a comfortable silence.

He didn’t know how much time had gone by when he finally managed to finish building the desk, because Dirk hadn’t let him buy a clock. However, what was clear was that the desk in front of him was in fact a desk, and that was good enough for him. He stepped back to admire his work, and his eyes feel on Dirk, now fast asleep on the floor just a few feet away from where he was standing.  
Dirk’ mouth was slightly open, and he was exhaling in short puffs. He looked youthful, he looked at peace, and Todd would be lying if he said that he didn’t find it endearing. He stood for a while, watching his boyfriend’s chest rise and fall with even breathes, taking in the picture before him. After a few long minutes, he knelt down and shook Dirk awake.  
‘Whaaaat?’ Dirk whined as he sat up, causing Todd to let out a short laugh.  
‘If you want to sleep, you should go to bed. You’ll wake up hurting if you sleep on the floor.’  
‘No, I’m okay. Just give me a second.’ Dirk shook off his sleep, doing a little dance on the spot, and stretched his arms above his head with a yawn. ‘Oh! You finished the desk? That’s great. Great, Todd!’  
‘You’re rather enthusiastic about it,’ Todd said, helping Dirk up and pulling him towards the bedroom. ‘And even if you aren’t tired, I am, and you are coming to bed with me whether you like it or not.’  
‘Fine, fine’ Dirk pouted, but followed along behind Todd nevertheless. They had almost made it into the bedroom and shut the door when Dirk turned and surveyed the mess of wood that should’ve been two chairs. ‘You know what? Maybe if it isn’t made right, the universe doesn’t want us to have it.’  
Todd’s head snapped around. ‘We have no chairs, Dirk.’ He started, his voice rising in volume. ‘WE NEED CHAIRS!’

**Author's Note:**

> Bonus: Todd pulled Dirk in by the collar, his mouth mere centimetres from the other man's, and whispered 'You may not be able to build flatpack furniture, but I know some wood you can handle.'
> 
>  
> 
> Many thanks to: Gran, holisticandsadistic, Thunder, Kyoko, Sophs and ofc everybody else who was discussing this beautiful idea in the discord chat. You are all my inspiration.
> 
> You can follow me on [tumblr](amandabrctzman.tumblr.com) if you want.
> 
> Thanks for reading this mess!
> 
> -Lyssia


End file.
